I don't think I would like to live in a pure capitalist system or a pure socialist system. The thing I don't like about capitalism is that it's too stratified. If you're born into wealth you have a much better chance of staying wealthy whether you're talented or not and whether you're hard working or not. I could go to Harvard or Yale without being a top drawer student if my daddy is rich and he went to Harvard or Yale before me, making me a legacy candidate. While there, I could network with smart people who know what they're doing and at the very least find good people with whom to invest daddy's money once I inherit it.

If I'm born into poverty on the other hand, I could have a lot of native ability and be a very diligent student, but I will only be able to do so much with the crappy public education I receive at a school with few resources. Even if I manage to compensate for what's lacking in my school by finding the right books to read in the public library, my odds of putting together enough money to go to college or to start my own business are pretty low. I could be way more talented and hard-working than the Harvard legacy student, and still not be able to climb out of poverty, much less be rich.

The middle class is probably the most fair life to be born into, insofar as you can move up or down or remain stagnant based on your own ability. You can receive an adequate education if you pay attention in school, and if you're willing to work and sweat hard enough, you might make it into the upper class. If you're a slacker, you might end up sliding into poverty, and with an average effort, you can probably stay in the middle class. But for the upper class there needs to be more downward mobility for stupid people and in the lower class there needs to be more upward mobility for the smart and ambitious.

I've never lived in a predominantly socialist society, but from what I understand, it doesn't seem to reward ambition and ability so much. If I work hard to become wealthy in a socialist society, I will be taxed heavily to pay for so-called "free" education, health care, day care, etc. for the lower and middle classes, thus taking away my incentive to make money insofar as I don't get to keep much of it. That may sound selfish, but imagine you worked your butt off all year and made $100,000, but the government took $52,000 and you only got to keep $48,000. How motivated would you be to work that hard the next year? By the way, 52% isn't just a random figure. That was the highest tax bracket in the Netherlands in 2014. The bracket just below it is also pretty hefty at 42%. I guess if you believe that your government is more efficient in providing for your needs and the needs of others than the free market system, you might like socialism. If your government seems to be bureaucratic, inefficient, and maybe even corrupt, socialism may not sound so good to you.

Anarco- capitalism paired with the non-agression principle does not require a state or governing body of any kind.

Regardlesss from 1776 until about the 1970s we were more capitalist than ever and the country grew faster than the rest of the world because of it. 200 years of capitalism is a pretty strong number especially when you put it up against every single communist, socialist and fascist system to date.

Not only has capitalism proven to last in a relatively pure form but it also has provided the fastest and most successful raise in quality of life in all of history.

Socialism or any other society that centrally controls the means of production distribution and consumption simply can't come close to the benefits individuals see from capitalism.

Central control of production, distribution, and consumption isn't what socialism is at all. That's just state capitalism, which as you may have guessed, is a type of capitalism.

I also feel that it's disingenuous to claim capitalism has provided the "fastest most successful raise in quality of life in history" when Cuba has established arguably the most impressive medical system in the whole world while also being embargoed by the biggest economy in the world.

And anarcho-capitalism seems like a such a contradictory "libertarian" position to me. You get rid of the government because it's based on relations of force, and replace it with a market system that's based on even MORE relations of force? "If you don't pay me you could be murdered and our privatized lawyers and police officers won't do anything."

Last I checked into the situation in Cuba, their system crashed hard core once the cash subsidies from the Soviet Union ended - I believe Cuba today is as much of corrupt mess as it was before Fidel took over.

Anarcho-capitalism is a pipe dream - and a pretty wicked pipe substance at that.

How is a market based on force? Assuming the society keeps in place basic notions of free exchange and social pressures against the use of threats and intimidations (which granted would be impossible to enforce w/o some form of government) then there can be no force in a real free market.

The idea that one would be able to extort others w/o penalty is a straw man argument at best.

I can't think of any major economist who would take the position that our capitalism was even remotely "pure" after (at the latest) the Great Depression. What we saw prior to the Great Depression, when we were more or less a pure capitalist society, was what is predicted as a short-coming of capitalism, ever increasing boom and bust cycles which arguably culminated in the Great Depression. . .and was the final blow for pure capitalism in the US. There were 25 recessions between 1836 (when they started tracking the numbers) and the great depression. This is when the federal government stepped in an took measures to regulate the economy a bit and keep things a little more stable. There have been 12 recessions since then, almost all much more mild than the bulk of them prior to the great depression.

While I am a firm believer of Capitalism as the base for a financial system, the idea that we were purely capitalist till the 1970s is not a position I believe many economists would agree with. On top of that, it appears that the period of best growth and stability in this country was during the period right after we started to really regulate the economy (1930s) and the deregulation that took place under reagan (1980s).

After the 1930s, we saw the wealth gap in the country shrink as the middle class was raised up, and then after the 80s, that gap regrew and was eventually capped by the great recession.

While I am certainly not suggesting a full socialist system, I think we both saw the benefits of moderate socialization of the economy (after the great depression) and the risks of undoing that (post 1980s).

Neither system has proven able to withstand the ravages of time. The systems that work the best for the longest are usually a mixture of various political and social demands and responses.

A pure capitalist system cannot last once the resources have been consumed.

A pure socialist system does not last because it cannot produce enough for a continually growing population. So, to answer the question, I would rather live in a blended system. One that is capitalistic enough to for its people to make a living and one that is socialistic enough to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.

"A pure capitalist system cannot last once the resources have been consumed." When has this ever been seen to be the case? I'm not aware of any capitalist nation that has collapsed primarily due to resource depletion. I can think of examples of technology altering the supply and demand balances screwing up a country in the short time, but not outright depletion, as when the supplies drop low enough, there's incentive to find an alternate productive activity in order to maintain income.

The closest to pure capitalism, or laissez-faire economics, that I can think of would probably be the pre-WW1 US. It wasn't until the willful use of government to consolidate economic controls (which started in earnest in 1913 with the federal reserve act) that the economic system significantly changed. The professed benefits of a more stable economy less subject to the boom-bust cycles never came to fruition as you can see the cycles continued throughout the 20th century, even as governments continued to consolidate economic power.

I believe in co-ops as being superior to most corporations, but I don't consider myself a socialist because I believe in one form of socialism. Credit unions are one example of a co-op. Another is a local/community electric co-op, owned by its consumers. Such a co-op would provide most of the profits back (profit sharing) to its consumers when payments exceeded expense.

I'd have to abstain from voting, since I don't believe it's an "either, or" question. Capitalism and socialism together create a better economy for the people, than either do alone. But I think the biggest reform that needs to occur is to eliminate the hording of wealth by corporations and rental property owners. Poverty would be pretty much eliminated if people were paid a fair wage and charged fair rent (which would be half of what most places charge). One of the problems with corporations is they create inflation in the communities they reside in. Through higher salaries, higher property value, etc. Some of these corporations will pay lower than average hourly wages, and enforce part-time hours, in order to increase profit. That's the problem. We don't want to work for corporations, for the economy. We want it to work for us. Focusing on profit sharing, rather than elevating the "1%".

To oversimplify the argument, within free enterprise and capitalism, you can always choose socialism for certain areas within that free market. But not vice versa. Once you have socialism in place, you cannot go back and have areas of free market within it.

I believe all people should have freedom and support to set up and operate their own systems of management and representation, to avoid conflict with other people and groups. That way, people are free to choose socialism, communism, capitalism, direct or representative democracy, isocracy or isonomy as I believe can l accommodate all choices equally in keeping with Constitutional equal protections.

Seeing as how if everyone put their best interest in front of others, then everything would go a lot better.

Socialism is a tough one, I believe with socialism, people will find it unfair. Everyone would be paid the same for different jobs, there'd be no point in pursuing a college degree in a certain field if you're not going to get a bigger reward.

I mean, think about it, who would want to spend a ton of years in college to be a doctor to be paid the same as someone working at a fast food restaurant?

I would definitely prefer socialism, not only because it is more fair, but because capitalism sucks. The thing with capitalism is that 99% of wealth is owned by 1% of the population, and vise versa. This creates a huge gap between the wealthy and poor, thus making poverty a major issue. Socialism on the other hand has a fairly equal salary for everyone, although some people who have harder jobs make slightly more. I agree with this system because there isn't a gap between the upper and lower class and because this way, as opposed to communism, allows people who work harder to be rewarded for it.

I think in a normative sense many would argue in favour of a socialist system, but as all previous attempts to establish one have failed how in a realistic sense can your view be defended? I would argue that socialism is an unachievable aspiration in its purest form, and even then what was originally intended from socialism was the subsequent development of Communism.

show me a socialist system that has given more to the world than our capitalist system and I will consider it. A casual reading of world history would indicate that max freedom equals max wealth for citizens per capita and more importantly,, max freedom.

This is rather hard to do; there are currently no socialist economies.
In a socialist economy, every decision about the production of goods is made democratically. People collectively own the means of production. Normally this is envisioned through government ownership, but as I am also an anarchist I tend to imagine a more union-driven model. People working at various factories collectively create a system of several levels of organization, which polls people on what they want and need, and decides what the factories need to produce. The factories then produce this, to create the maximum benefit that factory can produce.
Unfortunately, socialism is really strongly geared towards physical production - industrial societies. I honestly don't know how well it would work, if at all, in an information economy. But! That shouldn't really matter, since capitalism is just about dying (soon a huge portion of work will be automated - no one will be able to work enough to buy things) and socialism doesn't look like it's going to take its place.

Also, please consider that currently America has a socialist health system (before obama care - if you walked into a hospital with no ID and no way to pay, you got free care. This was then covered by taxes.), a socialist fire prevention system (tax-covered firestations), and much more.

This is something of a "no true scottsman" fallacy. Every attempt at a socialist economy results in either a totalitarian state and/or economic collapse due to the lack of responsiveness of political organs.

Also, the claim that the US had socialist health and fire services is just a non sequitur. Not all government functions are automatically a part of socialism. These are "emergency services" and represent a much older aspect of government than either capitalist or socialist economic theory.

The socialism vs capitalism debate centers around the ability of an individual to gain profit via trade vs labor. Emergency services are supplied to an entire area and must respond to emergencies under their authority immediately because emergencies are, by nature, time sensitive. There is no time for a political organ to make a decision of how/when to use the community resource of "fire truck" (socialism), or for a property owner to purchase the service "fire truck" from a vendor or even for the fire-fighters to sort out weather they have a standing contract with a particular property (capitalism).

" Every attempt at a socialist economy results in either a totalitarian state and/or economic collapse due to the lack of responsiveness of political organs."

Not so, unless you are defining socialist in some utterly pure and rarified manner. In fact, socialist countries rate highest on the prosperity index, with Norway sweeping up in the last 5 years.
Scores are based on " entrepreneurship, personal freedom, health, economy, social capital, education, safety & security, and governance."

Besides, any type of government can succumb to fascism....see Mussolini's Italy. Fascism is a device of corruption and inequality, and is generally linked to right wing ideologies....although it can sometimes arise in leftist governments as well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

Socialism is government by the working class (i.e., the productive members of society) where as capitalism is government by the lazy, welfare-queen, criminal one-percenters. Capitalists do no productive labor what-so-ever, rather they get rich by legally stealing the wealth created by those who actually worker.

"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class." -- Al Capone

Perhaps you should read some Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, Luxemburg and Einstein instead of watching silly propaganda videos produced by capitalists.

The real division of society is between labor (left-wing) and capitalists (right-wing). This division is obvious to everyone who merely takes a second or two to think. The capitalist (right-wing) gets richer and richer when workers (left-wing) toil harder and harder for less and less; when benefits are slashed or eliminated; when good-paying jobs are exported to slave-waged locations around the world; when taxes are slashed for rich capitalists in exchange for austerity to be inflicted upon the working class, etc.

In fact, to understand socialism one does not even have to read Marx, Engels, etc. Every socialist policy can be derived simply by asking the question, what would the working class do if they held state power?

Marx: The financially and morally bankrupt guide to moral finance. In spite of a college education, was unable to provide for his family, mistresses, or his illegitimate children due to his mismanagement of their finances.

Engels: Marx's financial life-line that spent his entire life in political theory and never actually put his theories into practice in any meaningful way.

Trotsky: Career Politician that learned the hard way the kinds of people that a concentration of power attracts.

These are the people whom you declare to be wise, while you ignore the actual leaders that they produced:

Lenin: Mass-muderer, stole lands from actual farmers and placed them in state control, producing massive famine. Had dissidents killed. Definately NOT a man you want governing a country, even though he didn't hold a candle to . . .

Stalin: This guy easily lapped Hitler a few times in body count without even counting what he did to Eastern Europe after WW2.

Mao: Great Leap Forward! Everyone make completely useless steel in their back yards instead of the food you need in order to not starve!

The Kims of North Korea: Yeah... It's not called the world's largest concentration camp for nothing.

Castro: Made great use of Che Guevera once Che started channeling his inner-Stalin. There's a reason that Cubans STILL try to cross over to Florida in makeshift boats. His first name starts with an "F"

Your typical class-warfare claim of the Rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer doesn't hold any historical water. Attempts at socialism invariably have produced less economic mobility, lower quality of life, and violent oppresion of the "working class" by the political elite, who use their control over the economy to enrich themselves with labor of the masses (Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea).

Meanwhile, the quality of life, even for the laborers, in capitalist societies has consistently been driven up, and even theoretically socialist countries like China have restored their economic fortunes by re-establishing free-market practices. Even looking back 60 years, the modern "poor" in countries like the US have more amenities than the typical middle-class family did in the 50s.

Captialism is hardly perfect. There is abuse of the market, there is consolidation of assets in order to muscle out competition. Income isn't distributed particularly fairly. However, the solutions have not been found in Socialism, which in historical practice, makes those problems worse, rather than solving them.

and they not themselves masters of propaganda? and also if socialism/communism is so much better, then why is the USSR (A.K.A. the CCCP, Soviet Union, whatever you want to call it) gone and yet the USA is still standing? we maybe limping along on a crutch, but that's more than i can say about the USSR, and we didn't march in and destroy them, we just let them destroy themselves with years of managing their money like a teenage girl with daddy's credit card, and another thing (yes you've just opened a can of worms) we capitalists believe in hard work not welfare (there are some who cannot work who do deserve help) and you forget (or omit) the fact that with capitalism you have a chance to work your way up and go from rags to riches, it's the first and only system to allow that and so the rich of today were likely the poor of yesterday who were able to pull themselves up out of poverty because and only because of capitalism (insert American flag waving behind me with patriotic music playing dramatically in the background)

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~Aleksandr Vladof[US]

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May 27, 2016

Wow, you want a purely socialist society, do ya? You're typing this on a computer, a product of capitalism. Hand it over, when ready.

The "Original Thought Theory" states that anything anyone can ever say, has already been said by someone else. Patents and copyrights are the backbone of the system. I think human mind is incapable of having original ideas. For example, there is a patent on disposable dental floss. The idea is pretty simple. Is there only one person who has thought about it? We need to do a research on whether human mind can have patent rights.

I would rather live in a post-capitalistic society that preserved the values of freedom, autonomy, diversity, solidarity, equality, and happiness. That in my mind would look a lot like a participatory economy, as outlined by Michael Albert.

I wish there was an option for "hybrid system", since that is what I would prefer. Capitalism works great for some things, especially when there is lots of competition and for goods where there is scarcity. It works less well for things like intellectual property (which is not scarce, in the sense the copies can be created cheaply or at no cost).